You can’t call a truce on social issues in one breath if you’re going to gripe about identity politics in the next—especially when “identity politics” means any discussion about the realities of racism in the United States.

Parties recover from defeat in two ways. They can try to beat the opposition at their own game, or they can try to change the rules of the game. Donald Trump did the latter. Now it’s the Democrats’ turn.

In her new book, Our Sister Republics, Caitlin Fitz exhumes a forgotten moment in the history of the Americas, a time when residents of the newly formed United States came to see Latin Americans as partners in a shared revolutionary experiment.